In order to provide you with the best service possible I need to hold your personal contact details and records of your therapy sessions. This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after therapy has ended. Your privacy is very important to me and you can be confident that your personal information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679) (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. I also adhere to the ethical guidelines regarding protecting client privacy and confidentiality set by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
My lawful basis for holding and using your personal information
The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data.
If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, I will use legitimate interest as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information.
If you are currently having therapy or if you are in contact with me to consider therapy, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract.
The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me processing any special categories of personal information is that it is for provision of health treatment (in this case therapy sessions) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between me and you).
How I use your information
I will never use your personal data for any purposes other than the administration of the therapy service that I am providing to you i.e. to arrange, cancel and rearrange appointments. I will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary. This is in line with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Initial contact: When you contact me to book your first appointment I will collect some brief information to help me to process your enquiry.
This will include your name so that I can book the appointment into my diary and also a contact method, for example an email address or mobile number. This information is requested so that you could be informed if I was unable to attend an appointment due to unforeseen circumstances.
While you are accessing therapy: Your email address and mobile number will be used for scheduling, confirming and arranging (where applicable due to any unforeseen circumstances).
I am a registered member of the BACP. The BACP is The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy who are the governing body for counsellors and psychotherapist. As a counsellor I abide by their Ethical Framework and Code of Ethics. Therefore a verbal contract has to be in place before any counselling takes place.
Anything you say during your counselling session is strictly confidential unless you mention harm to yourself, harm to others, harm to children or anything to do with terrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking. If that was the case then I would have to stop the session and inform the relevant authorities, if possible, I will discuss this before doing so.
If you are intoxicated or under the influence of drugs, then a counselling session cannot take place. I do attend Supervision. Supervision is a requirement of the BACP. a supervisor is more qualified than a Counsellor they are in place to ensure that I am practising safely and ethically. Sometimes as a Counsellor guidance is required to support the client to ensure they gain the most from their sessions. I would never take your personal details to supervision; I would only talk about aspects of our sessions. In this way confidentiality is not breached.
After therapy has ended: Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 5 years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.
Data security
My business email account has a two-factor authentication access method and business mobile phone is password protected. Any email correspondence will be deleted within one month if it is not necessary to keep it.
Website visitors
The website uses cookies and Google Analytics. Almost all websites use cookies which are small files that get put on your computer by websites as you surf them. These cookies can store lots of information which can have privacy implications. Google Analytics is a service provided by Google that gathers anonymous data on how people are using websites and then provides visitor statistics, details of page views etc. This service is used by many website owners as the data helps website owners to improve their websites.
I use Calendy a third party booking system to help schedule the initial 15 minute consultation. For more information about Calendly, please check their Privacy policy or Click Here. Following booking confirmation Calendy, this central source is used for the base of contacting you directly.
Your rights
Under GDPR, 2018 guidelines you have the following rights:
The right to request access to the personal information that I store and process about you.
You can ask for corrections to be made to the information held or for your personal information to be deleted.
You can also ask me to restrict the processing of your personal information or to object to the processing of it altogether in some circumstances.
You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters.
If you would like to make a request relating to any of the rights above, please send a request in writing by emailing contact@findyourjoywellbeing.com.
Queries
‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person or organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is Joyti Kaur and I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office: the registration number for Joy Wellbeing is ZB690269.